Love and Lies
by Ankoku21
Summary: The number one rules of assassins: show no emotion. Axel fully intended to follow that rule until he met Roxas. His world is about to come undone when he realises that he's in love, and the worst part is, he's making Roxas's world crumble too. AU. AkuRoku, also contains MarLarx and Zemyx.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. If I did, Axel would be the main character and he and Roxas would have kissed by now. Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy and all their characters/worlds/other content belong to Square Enix and Disney.

* * *

His heart was pounding against his chest as he made his way silently through the deserted corridor. Some fans of cliché may have said that things were a little too quiet, but that was just the way he liked it; it made his job a lot easier if no-one was around to witness him in the act. That was one of the reasons he'd chosen to attempt this during the night, when most of the mansion's occupants would be asleep.

Staying as close to the wall as he could, he crept closer and closer to his target, adrenaline starting to course through his body as he pushed open a door and slid into the next room. This room was a bedroom. The figure sleeping in the bed at the far end of the room shifted in his sleep, unaware of the stranger who was now approaching.

'Nothing personal, mate,' the hooded man whispered, pulling a dagger from under his cloak. 'Just doing my job.'

-.-.-.-

A cool summer breeze swept through the open classroom window as Mr Rhapsodos tried and failed to get his class interested in Romeo and Juliet. Granted, it wasn't one of his favourites either (he would much rather be teaching them about LOVELESS, but that unfortunately wasn't on the syllabus anymore) but the class was reacting as if the play was somehow going to transmit some horrid disease to them if they read even the first line.

About half of the class had decided that the books were only good as projectiles, meaning the floor was now littered with about fifteen copies that had suffered the unfortunate fate of being flung across the room at either the wall or a student. Mr Rhapsodos was sure that he'd even seen one book fly clean out of one of the open windows.

Speaking of windows, most of the class were too busy leaning out of said openings (for reasons known only to themselves) to even notice there was a book on their desk at all. The rare occurrence of sunshine had rendered most of the class unable to do anything but either long to be outside basking in its rays or complain of the apparently overwhelming heat.

'Sir, it's too hot to read,' groaned Hayner, as if on cue, rocking his chair back onto it's hind legs. 'Why do we have to read this, anyway? It's so boring.'

'At least it's not LOVELESS,' Zidane pointed out, a huge grin creeping across his face as Mr Rhapsodos bristled with indignation. 'That was hell to read; it just droned on and on about heroic crud.'

'Tribal! One more word out of you and you're going to be in detention for the rest of the month!' Mr Rhapsodos snapped, looking like he was fighting the urge to throw his copy of Romeo and Juliet at the impertinent youth. 'Kisaragi, Estheim, Summers, get back inside right now or else I'll push you all out!'

When Mr Rhapsodos started using surnames, it was time to desist. Yuffie, Hope, and Rikku obediently retracted their head from the window and returned to their seats, not doubting for a moment that Mr Rhapsodos would follow through with his threat if they didn't do as instructed.

'Right. Everyone who threw a book, go and get it,' Mr Rhapsodos ordered, a little calmer. 'Everyone, open your books, we're going to read the first scene in Act Three. Hayner, you're reading Benvolio. Hope, Mercutio. Zidane, Tybalt. Sora, Romeo. Olette, Lady Capulet. Pence, Montague. Roxas, Prince. Go.'

Hayner made an irritated noise before beginning to read, clearly unhappy that his relaxing time had come to an end. Reading in a bored monotone, Hayner finished his line as quickly as he could before letting his head fall on his desk, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to die. The only one who seemed remotely interested was Sora, who had that usual look of excitement on his face.

Roxas stared out of the window, watching as tree branches moved gently in the breeze. He could hear a bee humming lazily somewhere and the cool breeze on his face felt wonderful. It wasn't his turn for ages so he didn't have to worry about zoning out like this. He could feel his eyelids drooping, lulled by the rhythmic buzzing. It was too hot to concentrate on Romeo and Juliet anyway, why not just go to sleep?

...

'Roxas? Roxas!'

Waking with a jolt, Roxas found that Mr Rhapsodos was standing over him, looking particularly irate. The whole class was staring silently at the two, most looked like they were holding their breath as they waited to see what would happen next. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he realised that he'd been asleep for about fifteen minutes. Mr Rhapsodos would probably have let this slide if he hadn't been in a particularly foul mood thanks to the rest of the class's antics up until now.

'Did you get sufficient sleep last night, Mr Keyes?' Mr Rhapsodos asked, icily.

'I... erm... Yes, sir...' Roxas said, quietly.

'Then is there any particular reason you felt compelled to sleep during my lesson?'

'... No, sir,' Roxas replied, his voice now barely above a whisper.

'In that case, I'm giving you a half hour detention after school tonight. Now, I advise you wake yourself up and read.'

'Yes, sir,' Roxas hastily picked up his copy of Romeo and Juliet, found his place, and began to read. Thankfully, the rest of the lesson passed without any further incident, mainly due to everyone being too scared of Mr Rhapsodos's murderous glares to do anything else to upset him. When the bell rang for lunch, no one was more relieved than Roxas, who grabbed his bag and practically fled from the room, dreading his detention later that day.

-.-.-.-

'Did you hear about that politician?'

'Yeah, he died last night, didn't he?'

'I heard it was a murder.'

'I heard that, too. Apparently, they have no idea who did it.'

'He was a politician, there must have been loads of people who wanted him gone.'

Axel sat down with his lunch, amazed at how quickly news travelled; this politician had only died last night and it was already public knowledge at twelve thirty the following day.

'Don't they have anything better to talk about than some dead guy?' Marluxia muttered, sitting down opposite Axel and looking around the canteen at the gossiping teens. 'God.'

'You know what people are like when something like this happens,' Axel shrugged.

Marluxia raised an eyebrow as Larxene joined them.

'You're the last person I'd expect to be so relaxed about this gossip,' he said, quietly.

'Gossip isn't going to lead to an arrest,' Axel replied, calmly. 'Let them talk, let them make their wild accusations, because let me tell you this: the crazy conspiracy theories they come up with are never going to be right.'

'Don't get so cocky Axel,' Larxene said, a malicious smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. 'You may just become so blinded by confidence that you end up walking over a cliff.'

'Aren't you sweet to think about me,' Axel sneered, sardonically.

'What are friends for,' Larxene replied, gracing Axel with a derisive smile.

Axel returned the smile before moving his attentions from Larxene to his lunch. The table fell silent as the three ate, each one staring down at their trays. Most people would have started to feel uncomfortable after a while, but for Axel, Marluxia and Larxene, the silence was practically welcomed. Marluxia and Larxene enjoyed talking to each other, but when Axel was around they preferred to simply say nothing at all, which Axel was perfectly fine with, he wasn't overly keen to chat with the two anyway.

Thus passed the next half hour until Axel, having finished his meal and decided he wasn't going to hang around longer than necessary, stood up and went to get rid of his tray.

'One of these days he's going to slip up,' Marluxia muttered, poking his pasta irritably with his fork.

'Oh, yes,' Larxene said, sadistically, 'and when he does, I intend to be there to watch him fail miserably.'

'You've got a mean streak, Larxene,' Marluxia said, raising an approving eyebrow, 'I like it.'

Larxene's eyes sparkled wickedly.

'You haven't seen anything, yet,' she whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy and all their characters/worlds/other content belong to Square Enix and Disney.

* * *

Roxas groaned as he headed to Mr Rhapsodos' classroom for his detention; knowing Mr Rhapsodos, his detention would probably include something along the lines of a five thousand word essay on LOVELESS and its underlying themes. Of all the classes to fall asleep in, why did it have to be Rhapsodos'? Why couldn't it have been someone nice like Miss Lockhart?

Drawing near to Mr Rhapsodos' room, Roxas felt a chill run down his spine. Sitting against the wall was Axel Hayes, a person he knew by reputation only, but if that reputation was accurate, he wasn't sure he wanted to know him any further than that. Axel was two years older than Roxas, in the last year of high school, and was known around Twilight Town High as being something of a trouble maker. Apparently, he'd been arrested twice and ended up sending one of his classmates to the hospital after a fight. Once again, Roxas cursed his luck; the one day he fell asleep in class, he ended up in the same detention as Axel Hayes. Maybe he could just run away right now, before Axel noticed him, and then beg Mr Rhapsodos not to murder him the next time he saw him.

Too late. Any thoughts Roxas had been having of fleeing the scene vanished instantly as Axel, obviously realising he wasn't alone, raised his head and looked up at Roxas. Roxas froze, cerulean eyes locked with emerald.

'He's not here, yet,' Axel said, seemingly unaware of the way Roxas's heart was currently hammering somewhere against his Adam's apple.

'Oh... right...' Roxas managed to reply in a rather strangled voice. 'I'll just, er... wait here, then...'

As Roxas sat down as far away from the Axel as he could manage without it being obvious that he was terrified of the him, the flame haired youth raised an eyebrow at the effort it was taking Roxas just to string together a coherent sentence. Roxas swallowed hard, doing his best to look anywhere but at Axel.

The next minute or so seemed to drag on forever as the two waited for Mr Rhapsodos to show up; Axel seemed quite happy to just ignore Roxas and play some kind of game on his phone, but Roxas was painfully aware of the other's presence and couldn't relax at all. When Mr Rhapsodos finally showed up, it was all Roxas could do to stop himself flinging his arms around the teacher in relief.

'You're late, sir,' Axel said, not looking up from his phone.

'Well, unlike some, I actually have work to do,' Mr Rhapsodos replied, coldly. 'I don't have the pleasure of being able to play Tetris whenever I want or to show up half an hour late to my English lessons as you seem to, Axel.'

While Mr Rhapsodos had his back turned unlocking the door, Axel jerked a thumb at him and rolled his eyes at Roxas with a grin, and despite his fear of the older boy, Roxas found himself hastily turning a laugh into bad coughing fit as Mr Rhapsodos shot the two a glare.

'Right. Inside,' Mr Rhapsodos muttered.

Axel stood up with a stretch and wandered lazily into the classroom, hands behind his head, followed much more timidly by Roxas who didn't want to give Mr Rhapsodos a reason to be angry with him when the teacher was clearly in a foul enough mood as it was. The classroom was ice cold thanks to all the radiators having been turned off when school officially ended, and Roxas knew that the temperature was just going to make this whole experience even worse than it already was.

'Axel, I want you to complete the work you missed this morning,' Mr Rhapsodos said, handing Axel a copy of LOVELESS and a sheet of paper listing the work he had to do, then turning to Roxas and handing him a copy of Romeo and Juliet. 'Roxas, I want a thousand word analysis of Act Three scene one of Romeo and Juliet.'

Axel threw the book onto a desk (Mr Rhapsodos looked appalled at such handling of LOVELESS) before flopping into the chair and looking at the list of work he had to do. Roxas sat down and opened his copy of Romeo and Juliet; the quicker he got his work done, the quicker he could leave, he wouldn't put it past Mr Rhapsodos to keep him behind for longer than half and hour if he didn't finish his analysis. Axel didn't seem to care how long he had to stay behind, seven minutes later he had only just opened LOVELESS and made a start on his work.

About ten minutes passed in silence until a loud crash from outside caught everyone's attention (and nearly made Roxas jump out of his skin) and Mr Rhapsodos glared furiously at the door.

'What on earth are they playing at?' he muttered, getting up from his desk and heading outside to find the source of the noise.

He must have found the perpetrator quickly, soon the sound of him yelling at someone for being an immature fool who "could've gotten seriously hurt".

'Wouldn't want to be that poor sod,' Axel said, looking rather amused. 'Sounds like he broke one of those stupid sculptures in the corridor.'

'What do you think he was doing?' Roxas asked.

'No idea,' Axel replied, stretching and rocking his chair back onto its hind legs. 'Hey, Roxas wasn't it?'

'Yeah?'

'Want to prank Rhapsodos?'

'No thanks,' Roxas said, firmly.

'Why not? Are you scared?' Axel teased.

'No, I just don't want to end up in detention again,' Roxas said, finding that defying Axel was a lot easier than he'd thought it would be. 'I've got loads of things I'd much rather be doing instead of sitting in a freezing cold classroom writing about Romeo and Juliet.'

Axel chuckled a little before retuning his chair to all fours and watching Roxas closely.

'So, you've got a spine after all,' he said, looking rather pleased. 'I thought you were going to be another one of those idiots who just goes along with whatever I want.'

To be honest, Roxas had thought that too at first, but spending the past twenty minutes or so with the red-head had put him much more at ease in his company, which in turn made him feel a lot more confident that he could stand up to the older boy.

'You're quite interesting, Roxas,' Axel said, sounding pleasantly surprised. 'I think I'm starting to like you.'

'Thanks,' Roxas replied, dryly.

'Oh, come on, don't be like that,' Axel grinned, 'I'm serious.'

'No offence, but being liked by you isn't really a big achievement,' Roxas said, even surprising himself with his words.

'I beg your pardon?' amazingly, Axel didn't look offended in the slightest, if anything, he looked even happier.

'Well, you're not the greatest person in the world, are you?' Roxas said, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

'Aren't I?' Axel snorted.

'Definately not,' Roxas said, his smile now becoming a full-fledged grin.

In unison, the two burst out laughing, all tension between them vanishing as if it had never even existed in the first place. When Mr Rhapsodos returned a few moments later, he looked rather confused by the merriment in the room.

'What are you two so amused by?' he asked.

'Nothing important, sir,' Axel replied, cheerfully.

Mr Rhapsodos raised an eyebrow but sat back down without pressing that matter; he wasn't entirely sure he really wanted to know.

The rest of the detention passed without any further incident, for which Roxas was very thankful, and Mr Rhapsodos sent the two on their way. Axel, who would normally have grabbed his things and practically fled the room, chose this time to hang around while Roxas packed his stuff into his bag before heading out of the classroom with the blond.

'We should do this again some time,' he joked.

'No,' Roxas said, shortly.

'You know you loved it, really,' Axel teased, giving Roxas a gentle shove.

* * *

This chapter was so hard to write -_- The story just didn't want to go the way I had it set out to, but I think I got there in the end... Hopefully...


End file.
